Tall stories galore but where was Bernie?

Suzanne Carbone

IF THERE was a fashion theme at Albert Park yesterday, it was "tall". Grand prix chief Ron Walker and Premier Ted Baillieu, the $55 million men behind the race, went for a power stroll flanked by security. What a shame F1's diminutive bigwig Bernie Ecclestone wasn't there to join them in a photo.

Grand prix ambassador Kate Peck created whiplash in a red Yeojin Bae ensemble, all 180 centimetres of her beautiful self was elevated even higher in Tony Bianco heels, making her a towering 192 centimetres.

The real reason was his hunger. I held him up to ask his opinion of the rival high-rating cooking show My Kitchen Rules: "It's amazing. Like the AFL, you always need the NAB Cup".

There was no chance 3AW's Neil Mitchell would forget who he was with the four lanyards around his neck: from 3AW, Qantas, the Australian Grand Prix Corporation and his entry pass. Derryn Hinch arrived on a buggy and with his own non-alcoholic Edenvale wine, saying: "I'm a very cheap date." Wife Chanel stood back and watched as fans swamped the Human Headline, shouting: "You're a legend, mate."

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Sir Jackie Stewart, the former British F1 champ, wore checkered trousers in blue tartan and when a belle cosied up for a photo, he noted "these women who press themselves into you". The 72-year-old Scot only has to look in the mirror to understand why.

Mumm champagne, the French brand shaken and sprayed by the podium champion over the past 12 years, hosted a bar in the F1 Paddock Club — that's the VIP section far removed from the fold-out chairs on Brocky's Hill — and laid on corporate hospitality in a suite above the track.

Arriving in rock-star style in black limos were James Packer and wife Erica, and Ann Peacock and Nicki Wendt. Also strolling into the Paddock Club to make the most of the hospitality were I, Frankenstein actor Aaron Eckhart, soccer star Harry Kewell and wife Sheree Murphy, who packed earplugs in her Hermes bag, Labor MP Tim Holding and partner Felicity Selkirk, Big Pictures paparazzo Darryn Lyons, singer Leo Sayer, bon vivant Peter Janson, Brian McFadden and fiancee Vogue Williams, Young Talent Time host Rob Mills and judge Chucky Klapow, and beauty Jesinta Campbell with special friend Scott McGregor.

Federal Liberal MP Josh Frydenberg was a guest of Qantas and the man he replaced in the seat of Kooyong, Petro Georgiou, joined tall Ted in the government's suite, along with other monumental Liberal identities Jeff Kennett and Malcolm Fraser.

Chef Shane Delia watched daughter Jayda come second in a junior GP challenge in battery-operated F1 replicas and another dad watching on was Hatem Saleh, a restaurateur from the Atlantic Group, whose son has the high-octane name Diesel.

Here's proof how agile Jenson Button is out of an F1 machine. Over the weekend, a guest in Crown's suite over the track, Joshua Cunliffe, was taking photos out the window with his mobile phone and dropped it into pit lane. The McLaren driver happened to pick it up. Cunliffe, attending with girlfriend Madeleine Opitz and friend Natalie Grosby, arranged to meet Button and he gave back the phone, saying: "It still works mate, but the case is broken."